The Perils of Praises
by WinterSky101
Summary: Mari and Minako were Not To Be Trusted.


Most people would have known better than to ask Minako for advice when she was drunk. Alas, Viktor hadn't been in Hasetsu long enough to figure that out. He also hadn't been in Hasetsu long enough to know that Minako was _definitely_ going to take advantage of his ignorance.

"So what do you want to know?" Minako asked, swirling her drink around in the glass. "If you want baby pictures of Yuuri, you're going to have to go to Hiroko."

Viktor was momentarily distracted by the thought of baby pictures of Yuuri, but he forced himself to stay on topic. He could ask Hiroko about baby pictures later. He had to ask Minako for advice now.

"I've noticed that Yuuri likes it when I praise him," Viktor stated, hoping it wouldn't be a strange thing to say. "And I was wondering if you could teach me a few phrases in Japanese to use."

Minako's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why?"

Viktor blinked. "Yuuri likes praise."

Minako's eyes narrowed even more. "What are your intentions towards him?"

"I'm his coach!" Viktor protested, as if he hadn't flown halfway across the world on what he'd thought was pretty much an international booty call. (He had to admit, when thinking of it in those terms, it made sense that Yakov was angry.)

"So you just want to make him happy as his coach?" Minako asked, one eyebrow arching up in disbelief.

"It's what a good coach would do," Viktor replied stubbornly. That was perhaps somewhat of an exaggeration, but it was entirely because he wanted to be a coach that he wanted to praise Yuuri. _Entirely_ because he wanted to be a good coach.

"Hmm." For a moment, Viktor thought Minako wouldn't tell him anything, but then she relaxed slightly. "Alright, here's one. _Kimi wa kawaii ne_."

" _Kawaii_?" Viktor repeated, frowning. "I think I know that word."

"The West likes to use it for everything," Minako dismissed. "It's a way of telling him he's doing well. Can you repeat it?"

" _Kimi wa kawaii ne_ ," Viktor parroted obediently.

"Your pronunciation is pretty good," Minako remarked. "Have you ever tried to learn Japanese before?"

"Not much," Viktor admitted. "But I'm trying now. I want to be able to talk to Yuuri in Japanese."

"He'd like that," Minako said. She leaned her chin on her hand. "You care about him. A lot."

"I'm his coach," Viktor repeated.

Minako snorted. "Yeah, this is more than just being his coach. It's okay if you care about him, you know. He likes you a lot too."

Viktor's eyes widened. "He does?"

Minako looked surprised. "You can't tell?"

"Well…" Viktor shifted in the chair slightly. "Sometimes I can't tell. Sometimes he seems like he likes me, and then sometimes he avoids me! I don't know what I'm doing wrong!"

"You might not be doing anything wrong," Minako told him. "Yuuri can be weird." She made a face. "That's not right. Yuuri can be hard to read sometimes. Just because he's avoiding you doesn't mean that he doesn't like you. It just means that he's having trouble being with you."

"That doesn't sound very good," Viktor murmured, his heart sinking to somewhere around his ankles.

"No, that's not what I meant." Minako glared at her drink. "English is hard. What I mean is that sometimes Yuuri might not know how to act around you. But it doesn't mean it's anything to do with you, and it doesn't mean that he doesn't like you. It just means that sometimes things are hard for him."

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Viktor asked. "If things are hard for him, I want to help make them easier."

Minako looked at Viktor for a long moment, then she patted his cheek. "You're a good kid."

Viktor swallowed down the urge to protest being called a kid, especially since he didn't actually know how old Minako was. She didn't look much older than him, but he was also pretty sure that Yuuri had once mentioned something about her going to school with Hiroko. He had no idea how that could be possible, but he wouldn't have guessed that Mari was older than him either, so apparently he wasn't a very good judge of age.

"That's not an answer," Viktor said after a moment, when Minako didn't say anything else. "Can I help him?"

Minako sighed. "You'll have to talk to Yuuri about that. When he gets anxious, sometimes he wants support and sometimes he wants to be left alone." Viktor nodded. He could understand that, even if he didn't have anxiety; sometimes the support of other people could be cloying and the opposite of comforting. "Make sure he knows you believe in him."

"That's why I want to learn more praises in Japanese," Viktor said, hoping Minako would understand. He wondered if she could when he barely did himself. He'd never cared too much for praise about his skating, not since he was very young. It had become stale very quickly, with the same phrases being repeated over and over again. Yakov had never given him false praise, preferring to criticize and only very begrudgingly tell him that things were "good enough" or "acceptable." Viktor, fluent in Yakov from a very young age, knew what that meant, and he knew that was better praise than he could find from anyone else.

Yuuri, on the other hand, flushed with pleasure every time Viktor praised him. He didn't always seem to believe Viktor's compliments, but Viktor thought that probably meant he had to compliment him even more. He thought that, perhaps if he learned Japanese, Yuuri would believe the compliments more. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he was willing to give it a try.

"Here's another phrase," Minako offered. " _Kimi no me wa kirei dane_."

"That sounds sort of like the last one," Viktor remarked. " _Kimi no me wa kirei dane_."

"Good job."

Viktor preened under the praise. He'd gotten out of the habit of caring about compliments, but something about any simple praise from Yuuri's family (including Minako, whom Viktor was pretty sure Yuuri saw as some sort of aunt) made Viktor ridiculously pleased.

"Thank you for this, Minako."

"Trust me, there's not much I won't do for Yuuri," Minako replied, finishing the last of her drink. She looked at the empty glass for a moment, but didn't get up to refill it. Viktor, who didn't intend to drink any more himself, didn't offer to buy the next round.

"Mari!" Minako yelled suddenly, waving at someone across the bar. Viktor turned and saw Mari getting a drink. She waved back and came over to their table.

" _Konnichiwa_ , Minako. Hi, Viktor. What are you talking about?"

"Minako is teaching me praises in Japanese that I can say to Yuuri," Viktor told Mari, smiling at her. He wasn't sure if she liked him, but he hoped she did, and if she didn't, he hoped he could charm her. He wanted Yuuri's family to like him.

Minako added something in rapid-fire Japanese. Mari snorted, looking at Viktor for a moment, then replied in equally quick Japanese. Viktor, who understood maybe a dozen words in Japanese, had no idea what they were saying, but he waited patiently for them to have their conversation.

"What has Minako taught you so far?" Mari asked Viktor.

" _Kimi wa kawaii ne_ and _Kimi no me wa kirei dane_ ," Viktor recited. "Is my pronunciation alright?"

"Not bad," Mari complimented. "Here's another one. _Hansamu desu ne._ "

" _Hansamu desu ne_ ," Viktor repeated. "What does it mean?"

"It means whatever he's doing looks good," Minako replied.

"Hmm." Viktor frowned at Mari. "And what did the other you said to me mean? Um… _Kimi no me wa_ \- Um, _wa_ …"

" _Kimi no me wa kirei dane_ ," Mari finished. "It's just sort of generic praise. Like a general 'you're doing well.'"

"These praises all seem to mean that," Viktor remarked.

"They're pretty generic," Minako replied. "And there are lots of ways to say everything in Japanese."

"Here's another one," Mari offered. " _Egao ga suteki desu_."

" _Egao ga suteki desu_ ," Viktor parroted obediently. "Let me guess, that means Yuuri's doing well?"

"Good guess," Minako replied. "I can think of one more. _Dai suki da yo_."

" _Da suki da yo_ ," Viktor repeated.

"You're good with languages, aren't you?" Minako asked. Viktor preened again.

"Your Japanese accent isn't bad," Minako remarked. "It doesn't sound as Russian as I thought it would."

"Chris always says my French doesn't sound very Russian either," Viktor replied. "My English teacher had an accent, so I learned English with one, but apparently my French sounds very Swiss."

"If you learn Japanese from us, you might end up with a Kyushu accent," Mari warned. "Yuuri and Minako don't have it as much, but the rest of us do."

"Why don't you and Yuuri have the same accent?" Viktor asked Minako.

"Traveling," Minako replied, shrugging. "And it's not considered as professional as Standard Japanese."

"What's the difference?" Viktor asked, frowning slightly.

"Kyushu has a couple of different dialects," Mari replied. "If you don't speak Japanese, you won't be able to tell the difference, don't bother trying. But any native Japanese speaker can tell the difference."

"Russian doesn't really have that," Viktor replied. "There aren't many different accents. If someone speaks Russian, it sounds the mostly same as Russian from anywhere else."

"Really?" Mari asks, looking surprised. "But it's so big! Japan is small, but we have lots of accents."

"Not _that_ many," Minako countered. "Not as many as America."

"Don't get her started on America," Mari warned Viktor. "Especially not when she's had this much to drink."

"Hush, you," Minako scolded. "Can you think of any more praises for Yuuri?"

"One more," Mari said with a grin. " _Sekkusu o shimashou_."

Minako snorted. "Yeah, that's a good one."

"What does it mean?" Viktor asked warily.

"Trust me, Yuuri will like it," Mari said, which wasn't wholly reassuring. But Mari _was_ Yuuri's sister, and she and Minako _had_ been so helpful…

" _Domo arigatou gozaimasu_ ," Viktor said with a small bow. He knew this phrase was right already. Because of his traveling, he'd learned a set of phrases in a dozen languages: hello, goodbye, yes, no, please, thank you, sorry, and "where's the bathroom?"

Mari ruffled Viktor's hair in a way Viktor had seen her do with Yuuri. While Yuuri tended to bat her hands away, Viktor found that he actually kind of liked it. "Anything for Yuuri."

"Yeah," Minako agreed with a grin, "anything for Yuuri."

* * *

The next day at the rink, Yuuri seemed to be having one of his days where he could only barely look at Viktor. Viktor _hated_ those days. But now that he knew some Japanese praises, he figured he could pull some of those out and hopefully make Yuuri fall all over him again.

Viktor was perfectly aware that he could be a _little_ needy sometimes.

"That was wonderful!" he called to Yuuri when the latter finished a beautiful step sequence. " _Sekkusu o shimashou_!"

Yuuri choked and skated into the barrier around the rink.

Viktor suddenly began to wonder if learning Japanese praises had such been a good idea after all.

"Are you alright?" Viktor cried, rushing over to Yuuri. To his horror, Yuuri backed away from him quickly, his eyes wide and panicked. Viktor watched as Yuuri barely managed to skate over to the edge of the rink, put his skate guards on, and ran out of the room as fast as Viktor had ever seen anyone move off the ice with skates on.

Viktor has clearly done something horribly, horribly wrong.

He wonders if his pronunciation was off. Did he just insult Yuuri? Did he just insult Yuuri's family? _What the hell did he just say?_

"Is something wrong?" Yuuko asked, frowning as she came into the rink. "Yuuri just ran past me-"

" _Sekkusu o shimashoui_ ," Viktor said desperately.

Yuuko squeaked.

"What does it mean?" Viktor demanded.

Yuuko squeaked again.

Viktor groaned, raking his hands through his hair. "I _know_ it meant something horrible, but what is it? Minako and Mari told me it was a praise to say to Yuuri but I must have mispronounced it or something because-"

"Let's have sex," Yuuko squeaked.

Viktor froze, caught off-guard. "Um. Yuuko, you're a beautiful woman, but you're married, and-"

"No!" Yuuko waved her hands wildly. "No, that's not- That's what it means. _Sekkusu o shimashou_. It means 'Let's have sex.'"

Viktor blinked once, twice, three times. "Oh." That would explain Yuuri's reaction. But how could he have gotten the phrase so wrong? He didn't think he'd mispronounced it. What had Mari said instead that he'd somehow bastardized into some sort of crude come-on? It wasn't that he _didn't_ want to have sex with Yuuri, but he wouldn't put it like _that_.

"Um, Viktor?" Yuuko asked tentatively. "Was Minako drunk last night when she told you this?"

"A little," Viktor replied, although he wasn't sure how much Minako had had to drink before he got there. "But-"

And then it clicked.

He should have known better.

"Viktor?" Yuuko asked in a tiny voice. "Viktor, are you-"

Viktor buried his face in his hands and screamed.

* * *

 **I don't speak Japanese, so any corrections on the phrases would be welcome. The translations are supposed to be as follows:**

 ** _Kimi wa kawaii ne_ \- You are beautiful**

 ** _Kimi no me wa kirei dane_ \- Your eyes are beautiful**

 ** _Hansamu desu ne_ \- You're handsome**

 ** _Egao ga suteki desu_ \- Your smile is beautiful**

 ** _Dai suki da yo_ \- I love you**

 ** _Sekkusu o shimashou_ \- Let's have sex**


End file.
